Well, of course the ballgame would end at 8:10 p.m. Eastern time, with a rookie pitcher tip-toeing through the teeth of the best lineup on the planet. Of course they would blow a two-run lead in the ninth, and fail to maximize what they had brewing in the 10th, and still win the game. It was that kind of game.

It is that kind of year.

The Mets beat the Dodgers 5-4 in 10 innings on Sunday, earning a split in Chavez Ravine, providing proof that they are more than the product of a user-friendly early-season schedule. They dropped the first two games of this series in Los Angeles and you could surely hear the detractors from 3,000 miles away.

Then they made an early 1-4 deficit Saturday disappear.

And made an early 2-0 deficit Sunday disappear.

There are some games scattered across the long season that you know in the moment are worth circling in red ink, maybe covering with a couple of asterisks. This was one of them. The Mets knew that the rest of baseball was looking to see if they could look the Dodgers in the eye. The rest of baseball knows the answer now.

“It’s going to be a happy bus ride down to San Diego,” J.D. Davis said when it was over.

The Mets belong in the conversation.

“Last man standing, I guess,” Buck Showalter said.

The Mets rallied for three runs in the eighth, and as usual it was a scrapbook of different heroes who got that done: back-to-back doubles by Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso. A move-the-runner-over grounder by Davis (who, later, would add the game-winning hit in the 10th). And a huge insurance run driven in by Tomas Nido.

Showalter went against script, summoning Edwin Diaz in the eighth to retire 1-2-3, and then the Dodgers, because they are the Dodgers, because they’ve been the sport’s platinum standard for years, came back against Seth Lugo. It was 4-4. It went to the 10th. Davis’ sizzling line drive drove in Alonso but the inning stalled there.

Showalter gave the ball to Adonis Medina, 11 major league appearances to his name.

Or, as Davis himself would say: “Adonis Medina, man. Adonis Medina!”

You know. You understood. Because no matter where you watched this, you were saying the same exact thing.

“That game,” Davis said, “was a little but of an adrenaline rush. Two of the best teams in the National League going back and forth. It was just huge, man. Just a chess match. Even when we were down it felt even.”

He laughed.

“It’s like Uncle Steve [Cohen] said: ‘This team’s got some grit.’ ”

Grit, spit, a bit of just about everything. The Mets had downplayed the importance of this 11-day, 10-game Western swing because that’s what players do. In their minds this weekend was every bit as much a test for the Dodgers as it was for them.

Still, losing Thursday, losing Friday, that resonated.

But so did Saturday’s 9-4 win.

And so does this one, in which the Mets were down 2-0 three batters into the game but never allowed the Dodgers to get terribly far away from them. What Cohen said early in his tenure was that he wanted the Mets to be an operation based upon the Dodger model — a big-market team with big-market sensibilities but also smart organizational practices.

The Dodgers are still a few furlongs ahead of the Mets because they have some history on their side. But the Mets are right there. It was a fun game. It was a fun series. It’ll be a fun October if these two wind up colliding with one another.